


With Power

by Screwyy



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: But Dark, Gen, Kinda creepy vibe, Mirror version, One-Shot, Slice of Life, Spoilery Tags - Freeform, character exploration, dark atmosphere, else ill have more tags than words, implied death but theoretical, just read it n find out more, minorly philosophical
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-22
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:22:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23793043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Screwyy/pseuds/Screwyy
Summary: Searching through the remains of a homeworld-rebellion as Era 3 once more reigns victorious, Steven finds something that teaches him more about himself than he wanted to know.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 38





	With Power

Finally, it’s over.

The second gem rebellion has been defeated, and they can finally go back to Era 3, to love and tolerance and working on teaching new ways to the gems that were part of it.

Steven walks through the massive, dark and empty metal rooms. Makeshift technology is scattered about the place. He looks through it carefully, his gem illuminating the dark metal only slightly.

Wires, sharp edges and broken geometrial shapes greet the light, until…

A small sparkle. Steven reaches behind one of the piles of scrap and picks up a gem. A peridot.

He bubbles her, the sound echoing through the empty room, deactivated machinery watching silently as he sends the bubble on its way. He hesitates. They should have got them all, if they counted right, but he should at least walk to the end to see if they missed anyone.

He thinks back to Spinel and shudders a little, the eerie dark atmosphere and only the sound of his steps not helping the coldness creeping up his spine. He’ll check quickly, but he will check.

He keeps walking. The long room ends in a dark wall, chairs, work tables, materials, metal pieces and occasional containers of fluids scattered about. The rebellion conducted their experiments here. Thankfully, Peridot and Bismuth went to check on the unethical ones.

He walks to the end, with no gem in sight, until a dim light catches his eye.

On one of the tables sits what looks uncomfortably close to Lapis’ mirror. He looks at it for a long moment, the pink light reflecting in the frame and the handle. A small white diamond shape rests at the top. It would look back at anyone who picked it up and glanced at their reflection. Steven squints, seeing only black on the tilted surface of the mirror. 

He squints at some of the notes on the same table, skimming them for “mirror” or “white diamond”, until he finds something of interest. He reads.

_ Mirror of flaw _

_ Primary use: Determination of potential flaws of gems, especially those of lower classes.  _

_ Designed originally by White Diamond, tossed for the reflections it made of the diamonds themselves.  _

_ Intended result: Ranking gems by a more fine scale of pureness. _

_ Practical result: Reflection shows a twisted version of the gem in which deep, hidden or unknown desires are brought to light. Subjective, but very informative. _

_ Reconstructed by Facet 11, Cut 5X-B. _

He squints at the mirror. The surface is black. Glancing at nearby notes, he sees a quick sketch showcasing that the gem in question had to grasp the handle in order to establish the proper connection for a reflection.

He hesites. He should bring it back, or show it to the gems. It certainly seems important. It appears finished, as well. Who knows who will walk by and pick it up when they start cleaning out the place?

He reaches for the handle, his skin color reflecting in the shiny white metal of it. He could take it, and turn it away from himself, and look only at the backside. He has to look at the backside either way. It could be powered with a gem.

Curiosity twitches in his fingers, and despite his better judgement, he takes the handle and carefully tils the mirror to himself.

The diamond shape reveals itself to be an indicator, as it flashes briefly and then turns pink, his pink. 

He gasps, suddenly, as everything begins to twist. He looks around to see the black of the mirror engulfing him whole. Instead of standing in the room, he stands in an utter void.

Only him and the mirror. He clutches it tightly the last sign of reality, until he sees something behind it.

He lowers it to stand face-to-face with… himself.

Except this other Steven is different. His hair is curlier, messier. He’s wearing pink, dark pink hues that sit tightly over his form with a long, dark cape framing him from behind. The eyes look tired, darkness both over and underneath them. 

The gem of that other Steven is exposed, and his eyes are that of Pink Diamond’s. They stare at eachother wordlessly, Steven in shock and the other version with coldness.

Steven feels a connection he can’t quite place, something he hasn’t felt before. A deep communication, like looking at another, distant piece of himself. The face feels familiar, the straight back, the tired eyes. He looks, feels like a diamond. A Real Diamond.

Suddenly he notes something around this other Steven’s neck. A necklace, made with black string or some equivalent, with three shards hanging from it. The shards have holes in them to fit the string, forever bound to it unless broken into even smaller pieces to be freed.

The shards are Blue, White and Yellow.

Dread shudders through his whole body, fear he can’t quite place at the person he’s seeing standing in front of him. Like in a dream, he knows that it’s them. The diamonds. Like in a nightmare, he knows that he did this.

He stares back wordlessly, and suddenly the other version grins. Grins in a way that shows his teeth in a dangerous fashion, grins in a malicious, horrible way that makes Steven want to run, but like in a nightmare he’s stuck in a single place, unable to lift a single foot off the ground, forced to stare.

The grin looks monstrous, inhuman, cruel. It’s not calculating, no, it’s pleasured. Enjoying.

He shudders, he feels… terrified, scared, guilty, awful, and… with a piece of what his reflection feels. That distant, satisfying twist of joy. The sick amount of pride at seeing the shards, at hearing them clink around his neck. The forever sealed,  _ you'll pay for what you did to me. _

Steven flinches back, hard enough that he drops the mirror, the spell broken. He gasps for air, his back against the desk. The mirror clatters to the ground, and in it is the void.

A single, unilluminable black surface, and the white diamond stares at Steven as he calms down.

He takes a deep breath, bubbeling the mirror after a minute of gathering his bravery. He gulps. At least there’s no gem at the back. 

Something in him remains deeply disturbed even when he reaches the surface, when sunlight falls onto his skin again. 

The distant lingering feeling remains, one he learns to call temptation. With power comes responsability, and with responsability comes the temptation to not be responsable in the first place.

And his own power is something he fears he’ll never be able to run from.

So he chooses, with honesty, to always remain responsable.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, to be honest, I could write a lot of one-shots like these, i just fear they're not all that good, or too short to be posted. 
> 
> But leave your opinion on that in the comments if you'd like. 
> 
> Or on what I'm going to do with all these unfinished, I'm-afriad-I'll-never-finish-them SUF fanfics...
> 
> Kudos and Comments of all kinds highly appreciated!


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